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Single Idea 18226

[filed under theme 23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 3. Virtues / g. Contemplation ]

Full Idea

Contemplation, as Aristotle understand it, is not research or inquiry, but an activity that ensues on these: an activity that consists in understanding.

Gist of Idea

For Aristotle, contemplation consists purely of understanding

Source

Christine M. Korsgaard (Aristotle and Kant on the Source of Value [1986], 8 'Aristotle')

Book Ref

Korsgaard,Christine M.: 'Creating the Kingdom of Ends' [CUP 1996], p.229


A Reaction

Fairly obvious, when you read the last part of 'Ethics', but helpful in grasping Aristotle, because understanding is the objective of 'Posterior Analytics' and 'Metaphysics', so he tells you how to achieve the ideal moral state.

Related Ideas

Idea 543 All men long to understand, as shown by their delight in the senses [Aristotle]

Idea 12038 Translate as 'humans all desire by nature to understand' (not as 'to know') [Aristotle, by Annas]


The 13 ideas with the same theme [pure thought as a possible virtue]:

Anaxagoras said a person would choose to be born to contemplate the ordered heavens [Anaxagoras]
Only contemplation is sought for its own sake; practical activity always offers some gain [Aristotle]
Contemplation (with the means to achieve it) is the perfect happiness for man [Aristotle]
The intellectual life is divine in comparison with ordinary human life [Aristotle]
We should aspire to immortality, and live by what is highest in us [Aristotle]
The gods live, but action is unworthy of them, so that only leaves contemplation? [Aristotle]
Lower animals cannot be happy, because they cannot contemplate [Aristotle]
The more people contemplate, the happier they are [Aristotle]
Contemplation is a supreme pleasure and excellence [Aristotle]
The Stoics rejected entirely the high value that had been placed on contemplation [Stoic school, by Taylor,C]
Life and rationality are pointless if we can only contemplate the freedom of our own ego [Jacobi]
Contemplation is final because it is an activity which is not a process [Korsgaard]
For Aristotle, contemplation consists purely of understanding [Korsgaard]